Powerful WA Lawmaker Challenges Inslee’s Carbon Tax Idea

An influential WA State Senator plans to head off Gov. Jay Inslee's proposal to create some sort of carbon tax or cap-and-trade plan by using the Department of Ecology.

Senator Doug Ericksen, (GOP) plans to introduce a bill that would prohibit the Department of Ecology from adopting rules or policies that would set carbon limits on businesses or a statewide carbon limit. This plan comes as Ecology is getting ready to draft rules that would require the state's largest industrial emitters to cut emissions, or carbon as the environmentalists like to call it.

By doing so, if the bill passes, it would largely tie the arms of the regulatory agency that Gov. Inslee would have to use to enforce his plans for carbon, or pollution taxes, on businesses.

Ericksen is part of the Majority Coalition, a group of 23 GOP and 2 Democratic Senators who control the senior branch in Olympia, and have largely thwarted every attempt the House and Inslee have made to pass such laws.

Ericksen, on his website, has also laid out details of how Inslee's carbon tax plan actually encourages businesses to leave Washington state. He calls it a "perverse incentive," meaning such companies will head to Idaho or other areas where such carbon tax penalties are not in effect or being considered.